Scent & The Creative Explosion

Human creativity first manifested around 40,000 years ago in the so called 'creative explosion'. After thousands of years we suddenly had a urge to decorate & began making art from natural materials in the form of paintings and fragrance.  

The first form of scent was incense & the word perfume comes from the Latin 'per fumus' meaning through smoke. The ancient stone city of Petra in Jordan was created around 9000 BC specifically as a trade route for the aromatic incense ingredients of frankincense and myrrh. 

The world's first recorded chemist was a female perfumer from ancient Babylon called Tapputi. Clay tablets from 1200 BC describe her process of distillation, cold enfleurage and tincture - techniques we still use in natural perfumery today.

And more recently, the oldest perfume factory was discovered on the island of Cyprus. Scented with extracts of lavender, bay, rosemary & pine and stored in tiny translucent alabaster bottles these perfumes are over 4,000 years old & explain why Cyprus is considered the birthplace of the goddess Aphrodite (the goddess of scent).